


this will change us

by bxtchmercy



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch, Hospitalization, I'll add more tags when things get "mature", M/M, Pre-Fall of Overwatch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-03-03 02:30:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13331601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bxtchmercy/pseuds/bxtchmercy
Summary: "My leg hasn’t evenbegunto heal, has it?” He can feel his pitch rise, as if trying to pinch back the knot of frustration in his throat. “Tell me what is wrong with me.”Gabriel gets injured on a Blackwatch mission and loses his ability to regenerate cells. Every test to pinpoint the cause leads to dead ends. Moira offers an experimental solution, but it won't be without sacrifice.





	1. Prologue: Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is the downfall of Gabriel Reyes, told from McCree's perspective.

The sun dipped low above San Francisco-- what was left of it, anyway. Orange light streaked through broken windows and stressed buildings. The omnics had combed through the city and left it vacant. Empty cars, parts of buildings, and busted trams covered the wide streets. Omnic robot parts were littered with the destruction-- evidence of Blackwatch passing through.

The escort was going well. The agents followed the coordinates and cleared a path to the elementary school. Reyes and his team were expecting to rescue Joshua Torres there, but gained three more escorts after clearing the building. They were all children, and Jesse was thankful that Blackwatch cleared out the omnics on the path prior to pick up. Torres, the California governor's only child, was their top priority, and Reyes reminded the men of that in the comms on the walk back to the dropship.

Joshua's father, Damien Torres, had contacted Overwatch from the capitol building in Sacramento to retrieve his son in San Francisco. Overwatch received the coordinates connected to the child’s phone after Damien was unable to reach his ex-wife, who had custody of the eight year old that week. And, because the main Overwatch strike team was out scouting for traces of Talon in Scotland, Blackwatch was sent to babysit--as per usual.

He would much rather be scouting for Talon. Reyes and the rest of the high commanders have been tracking a trail for months now. All signs pointed to that scum group somehow acquiring the power to reactivate Omniums, and Overwatch was always six steps behind-- tracking a dead scent.

The walk back was quiet, save for the final intersection before the drop point. Commander Reyes heard something, halted the group in the cover of buildings, and peaked the corner.

One final bastion separated the team from safety on the other side of the street. The machine stood two hundred meters away, perched top of a destroyed car. To pass by, the team needed a distraction. Because of Commander Reyes' enhanced Soldier Enhancement Program healing, he volunteered to take it out.

It should have been an easy job.

Jesse, Gabe, Genji, and the four children took cover behind an old CVS at the base of the tower as Reyes prepped. The exterior walls were standing, decorated with bullets and busted windows. The building had fallen in on itself about four stories up, based on the beginning of the stressed brick and clot of rubble visible from the outside. Jesse was nervous about this stump of a building falling on the team, but Reyes assured him that he had nothing to worry about. With his thick cowboy boots, he kicked around empty medicine bottles and glass piled at the base of the old pharmacy.

Idling like this granted Jesse time to take in the sights. The skyscrapers jutted into the clouds and cast suffocating shadows onto the streets below. Jesse felt small, like the city could eat him whole, even with it being so empty. Maybe that was the most unsettling part-- a place this big being abandoned. There were small coffee shops with flipped over and busted outdoor seating; apartments with window planters dropped and spilled onto the street; and office buildings breathing in the wind, all windows shattered and dusting the sidewalks below. People lived here, and now they don't because of this omnic shit. Jesse gnawed the inside of his cheek at the thought. 

Commander Reyes leaned against the brick wall. Jesse was beside him, watching him reload his weapons.

"As soon as that bastion focuses me, Jesse, you have to move. You can't hesitate." Gabe dropped two empty shell casings on the ground and looked to the cowboy. His furrowed brows shaped his deep brown eyes.

"I won't hesitate, boss." Jesse adjusted his leather hat to block out the sun. The heat tasted like smoke and dust, and his hands felt sweaty underneath his gloves.

"You can't afford to." The commander lifted himself off the wall and let his weapons rest at his sides. "I'll give you both the signal before I rush. Finish the job at all costs." Reyes ran out of sight behind the CVS, hunting high ground.

Behind Jesse, Genji’s exposed black hair bounced as he gestured with his hands. The children watched him talk with enamored expressions. Genji really took a liking to kids, or rather, they took a liking to him. The cowboy knew that people usually feared and hated the cyborg for the way he looks, especially with the omnic crisis plaguing the world, but it's a pleasant change to see him interact with children.

Genji stopped his story to let Jesse tell the children the plan. The cowboy told them to be as quiet as possible to not attract the bastion. The four elementary schoolers responded with contorted faces. Even with Blackwatch there, it didn't change the fact that the bots terrified their escorts. Genji knelt among the kids to give them an encouraging word.

Joshua tugged on his baseball cap. He had listened to every speech that the cyborg had given thus far, though he refrained from talking.

"You are brave, children, for traveling with us through the city. Getting past the bastion will prove that you are fighters like me." Genji's red eyes were wide as they panned his audience.

"What if I get scared?" The smallest girl worried a bit of blonde hair through her fingers. There was dirt peppered on her face from her own anxious hands.

"I will protect you, Kenna. We will travel together. You have no reason to fear." Genji smiled under his mask; Jesse could hear it in his voice.

There was a stiff silence after the group was given the pep talk. Jesse braced himself against the wall of the CVS and exhaled. Reyes spoke on the comm line shortly after, giving the two agents the clear.

"I'm in position. You have five seconds until I'm on top of him."

"Good luck, Commander," Genji said.

The bastion unit was in recon mode several meters away from the escort group-- a perfect scenario. Reyes had this handed to him.

Jesse counted to five and moved. From his location, he could see Reyes leap from a fire escape. The commander bent his knees to stick the landing, shotguns in hand.

The children advanced. Genji pushed the citizens along from the rear but kept eyes on the commander, as did the cowboy.

Jesse heard the familiar sound of metal scraping and creaking as the bastion unit transformed into its turret mode. Two shots from Reyes' gun rang out against the sky and Jesse turned. He saw the machine gun turret spray. His commander took cover behind a pile of bricks in the center of the street, capturing the bastion's full attention.

Then Jesse heard a loud series of melodic beeps-- sounds he had never heard an omnic make before. The cowboy slowed, a sickening feeling developing in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't keep his eyes front. The escort group was over halfway across the street.

He halted and watched the bastion in this new form. Was this another addition to the units the Omniums were pumping out?

"McCree, move! We have people to escort; this is our top priority!" Genji pushed the children to walk faster, knowing Reyes' encounter was not going as expected.

Reyes gasped over the comm as the bastion morphed into a tank and launched explosive projectiles. He managed to dodge the first two by rolling out of the way, though the shots destroyed the brick pile he previously took cover behind. With the commander in the open now, the bastion changed its strategy and launched an explosive at his feet.

The blast tossed the commander onto a slab of concrete propped up by a pile of rubble. He was defenseless-- his shotguns blown across the street by the explosive. The smoke and dust cleared. A rod of steel speared Reyes' thigh, and the blood from the wound joined the blood on his chest from the previous machine gun fire. It looked like dirty engine oil slicking his body from this distance, the liquid almost black in the shadow of the buildings.

He was bleeding out.

Jesse could swear the bastion laughed through the mic as Reyes said, "Get them out of here!"

"Run!" Genji instructed. The other building stood twenty meters from the group. As the majority reached the other side of the street, Kenna stood paralyzed next to the cowboy. She watched Reyes’ blood soaked body in terror.

“McCree, the kid!” Reyes growled over the comm.

Jesse didn't hear him. He couldn't move. The bastion shifted into turret mode again. Even if Jesse sprinted, he couldn't clear the two hundred meter distance in time.

Reyes covered his chest with his arms as the last measure of self-defense. He was trapped. His healing was failing. This was death; Reyes knew it, Jesse knew it, even Genji knew it as he instructed the children to stay behind the new building and keep out of sight.

The cowboy watched Genji dash into the street in front of Kenna, the rapid motion stealing his attention. When had she gotten there? Genji picked up the child and held her in his arms.

“Come on, we have to move,” the cyborg said calmly.

The commander continued to yell through the comm as Genji carried her back to the escort group. Over the cyborg’s shoulder, Kenna was able to clearly witness what Jesse was watching.

The bastion unit waved to Reyes with its repair arm before firing into his chest. The commander’s body went limp, the angle of the concrete hinging him and letting him dangle like meat. The bot transformed into recon mode again and gripped its midsection as it chuckled, audibly, both on the comm line and on the field.

In a sudden resurgence of her emotions, Kenna wailed over Genji’s shoulder, “He’s dying, do something!”

The bastion turned immediately to the source of the sound.

Jesse turned to follow the bastion's attention, finally noticing Genji and the child. His eyes widened. He really fucked up this time. “Shit, run! I’ll distract it." 

Genji ran to the cover of the buildings. He cursed in Japanese, audible over the comm, then yelled to the escort group, “Move, now! Down this street and take a left!”

Jesse jeopardized this whole operation, lost his commander, and almost killed a young girl. He had to gain something from this failure.

The cowboy was looking down the sight of his Peacekeeper before he was aware it was out of its holster. He gripped one eye shut, breathed in, and time seemed to slow. He felt warm-- warmer than what the San Francisco heat could offer him. His mind focused.

He thought about Reyes and the compassion this man showed him. The moments when he didn't give up on him, though it felt like he should have. Jesse was left to die by the Deadlock Gang when he met Reyes. The Blackwatch commander took him, healed him, and vouched for him to be on his own personal team. He remembered being told that he ‘has potential’ and ‘is the best shot he'd ever seen.’ He also remembered watching Commander Morrison sneer at the comment and leave the interrogation room with a smirking Reyes. Within five minutes, Reyes returned and Jesse was given his new Blackwatch fatigues, his old hat, and his own revolver back. His new boss smiled at him and warned that if he tried anything stupid, he would "personally escort him back to the Deadlock Gang for them to deal with him."

Jesse thought about the times in training with sharpshooter Captain Amari and Commander Reyes. The three of them fought together into the early hours of mornings, Amari teaching him stronger weapon tactics and Reyes training the recruit in hand-to-hand combat. Jesse would finally finish at four in the morning after those late sessions and sleep. Reyes would let their mandated morning training start at noon. He was so kind to Jesse. It was nice being his protégé, in a sense. Reyes molded him into the sharpshooting, witty man he was today.

And there his commander was, mounted on a slab by a steel pipe.

Jesse fired, clipping the main fluids wire at the base of the bastion’s neck. Oil started to stream down its body, covering the metal casing of its chest. The second shot drove through the hydraulic pump system near the bastion's torso. The last four shots lodged in the machine's 'head', where a majority of the omnic's sensors processed.

The bastion seized and attempted to take turret form, but the loss of the hydraulic pump made it impossible for it to fully transform. This machine was in this odd half-state, its turret much too high to aim properly.

It still attempted to kill Jesse, despite this fact. The bastion reloaded and began firing. The bullets sprayed the decaying buildings above him, causing bricks to fall.

Jesse ran for the unit and rolled out of the way of the falling brick, reloading in the process. He needed to attack the machine in its crippled state.

He was ten meters away when the bastion unit forced itself to transform fully, and Jesse heard the machine let out a pitiful screech of beeps, like the damn thing could feel or something.

Jesse rolled again to close distance-- five meters apart now-- and could hear the bastion reloading to his left. He fired all his shots, one after the other, right into the body of the machine. Then he jumped it and tugged out wires connecting to the turret. More oil gushed to the ground.

Jesse didn't stop riding the machine until he heard the motor hum to a stop. He kicked the unit over and punted its head across the street. His eyes gripped back to Gabe.

Moira is on her way, Jesse remembered hearing that over the comm as he looked over Reyes' body. The muscle and skin of his leg stretched where his body hung off the steel pipe. Jesse held the man in his arms, adjusting the body's position to accommodate the foreign object. The commander took shallow breaths and hung limp in his agent's arms. Unconscious, but alive. That's all Jesse could ask for, really.

"Boss, you have to hold out. I've got you. Moira is on her way and she'll heal you."

Jesse spared a glance to Reyes' chest. He could see bullets resting in his mess of a torso-- holes in his body filled deep with that dark blood-- pink flesh and tan skin shredded together along with his vest and uniform. His arms were in a similar shape. Jesse kept thinking to himself: what happened to the commander's self-healing?

Reyes' legs were no better. His shoes and pants were blown and burnt to pieces, his scorched flesh peeled up from the blast, and metal shrapnel punctured his shins and thighs. Then that damn pipe.

The commander's face was untouched, save for his usual scars. His beard was visibly soft, his beanie gone from the commotion, and his thick head of brown curls on display. He looked at peace and Jesse hated it. He wanted to witness his commander's scowl, his guttural laugh, and his snide sense of humor. He hoped he would be able to see it again.

Moira arrived. He didn't look at her as she gave instruction to lift him. Blood began to gush out of the wound immediately. She dropped to her knees and flicked on her biotic restoration manipulator. Her thin, pale hands gripped a ball of the healing plasma.

"Hold him on his side. Make sure he stays still," said Moira.

Jesse did as told, laying Reyes on the ground and balancing the man's body between his own unsteady hands. She eventually instructed him to just grip his left thigh as she passed her 'healing gunk', as Jesse called it, between the hole in his leg. It flushed out blood. Minutes passed. The stream flowed between her hands and his wound and didn't appear to be doing anything past stopping the blood.

 _The wound must be pretty bad_ , Jesse thought.

Moira's lips narrowed as she watched the restoration fluid. She halted the process and reached under her coattail to get to her small medical kit.

"Your knife, Jesse."

"Yes, ma'am."

He handed off the knife in his pocket. Moira flicked it open and sliced Gabriel's pants to get to the wound more easily. She closed the knife, gave it back, and dipped her hands into her med kit. She cleaned the skin near the wound with a liquid from a black bottle and cotton. Moira then took more cotton from her bag and proceeded to pack the wound. She wrapped his leg with thick bandage and sighed.

"He is ready for transport now. I'll carry him back to the dropship and keep the biotic restoration fluid flowing through his system.” She sounded so stale about this, as if any of this was normal.

Jesse held his gaze low and looked at his commander's unconscious form. "And the escort?"

"The escort you failed to see to?" Moira raised a crisp brow. "You owe Agent Shimada thanks for cleaning up after you. If it wasn't for him, we could have had more than Commander Reyes injured. Consider yourself lucky this time." She extended an IV drip from the equipment strapped to her back and connected it to a vein near Reyes’ neck.

He bit the inside of his cheek as Moira raised up and whisked Reyes away in her arms. The cowboy got up off his knees and collected Reyes' two guns and his beanie. He felt awful. He did jeopardize the plan. But Genji finished the job and no one else was hurt. That can't be too bad, right? And Jesse, himself, was able to take down the bastion to help Reyes. With luck, hopefully, he will survive.

Jesse stared at the bot beneath his feet and the empty shells surrounding it, like leaves comforting a dead tree. He picked up one shell, put it in his pocket, and walked to the ship.


	2. Amiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel has been stuck in the labs since the San Francisco mission. He wakes up five days after his initial arrival back to base and tries to make sense of his situation. 
> 
> Jack, meanwhile, has been fretting immensely because the medics won't let the Commander see his partner. He has never been a man to idle, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the crazy delay on this. College got in the way of this story, then depression. But I have had my fingers kneading this story for most of the summer. Chapter three is in the works.

Gabriel wakes up to icy fingers on his chest, IVs in his arms, and a bright light in his face. He’s in a damn hospital gown; he can feel the cool metal table against his shoulders.

 _I’m alive_ , he thinks. He knows his leg got fucked up by that bastion unit. Everything after that is… unclear. He can’t feel anything from his waist down.

"Gabriel, you’re finally awake,” Angela says. “Stay still, please. No sudden movements or deep breaths."

Even through the harsh light of the lamp above him, Gabriel can tell that she is wearing her glasses. She must be focused on something small. He never understood why she didn’t just perfect her vision with all this technology around her. Surely she could.

"Are you experiencing any pain? Yes or no.”

“No.” His attempt to make eye contact dissolves into a squint, so he returns to closing his eyes.

The tweezers that peck at his chest are cold. His limbs feel achingly heavy, but Gabriel knows that it’s probably just a side effect of whatever’s being pumped into him. Despite how uncomfortable he is, the quiet whir of the lamp above tempts him to sleep again.

Angela’s hands pull away every few seconds. He hears metal gently clink against metal, and he assumes that there’s a whole container filled with bullet pieces that penetrated his vest. Finding it hard to concentrate on the sounds, Gabriel begins asking questions.

“What happened to my body out there? I couldn’t regenerate at all.”

“We’ve been running tests since you got in. Moira’s on break currently and letting me tend to you. Both of us have been cleaning you up for hours.”

 _Dodging questions already. Great_ , he thinks. Despite the success of his prior inquiry, he continues. “How long have I been here?”

“Five days. We’ve kept you sedated to better aid your healing process. Once you were stabilized, we removed the big chunks from your legs while keeping the restoration fluid running through you. The little pieces are time consuming, though.”

“And my thigh?” Gabriel attempts to open his eyes again to judge Angela’s expression, but the light is still too bright.

“Erm,” Angela hesitates. “That is taking the longest. There’s a deep wound, though it is beginning to heal very slowly. We’re keeping the fluid concentrated there.”

He hears a chunk heel step into the room, and Moira speaks up. “The bar punctured your leg all the way through.” She crosses the floor and Gabriel can hear the snap of new latex gloves. “Morning, princess. How was your nap?”

Gabriel says nothing and leaves Moira with a scowl. She laughs, “Not in the playing mood, I see--”

“Why is it taking so long?”

There is a pregnant pause.

Both doctors are prodding him with tweezers now, and Moira adjusts the lamp to shine on his lower torso. He hesitantly opens his eyes, now free from the blinding light.

Angela clears her throat, finally, “This is tedious work, Gabri-”

“You know damn well what I mean, Angela. Why have I been here for five days? My leg hasn’t even _begun_ to heal, has it? That’s why you kept me sedated?” Gabriel can feel his pitch rise, as if trying to pinch back the knot of frustration in his throat. “Tell me what is wrong with me.”

“We’ve been trying to repair your wounds, but your body is… limiting us, so to speak. Which leads us to an even greater problem at hand,” Angela’s eyes are evasive.

“Which would be?” Gabriel spits his words, his brows creasing his forehead.

“Look at your arms, Gabriel.” Moira’s voice deepens. Gabriel can tell she’s stressed, but hell, so is he.

He looks. His biceps, left untouched by the bastion unit, are covered in ink. Stab wounds: deep slices of varying depth labeled in blue pen. Black strings tug together each slit, angry purples and deep blues peeking through the unions of his skin.

“Stitches,” Gabriel says flatly.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Angela places her utensils on a tray and peels off her gloves, speckled with blood. “Your body is regressing into a state more vulnerable than its condition prior to the enhancement program. Your regeneration is practically non-existent, possibly even resisting our restorative fluid.”

“The Soldier Enhancement Program was supposed to-- did it not work? Was it not effective? Did I do something wrong? What happened to me?” Gabriel watches Angela’s slender fingers reach behind her head to pluck a bobby pin from her hair.

“We have yet to deduce what has caused this change in you. Hence why you’re still here.” Moira speaks without concern, never lifting her eyes from her work. More metal bits clink in the container.

“We’re trying to contact people from the enhancement program who may be in similar situations. We are pulling from all our old files.” The blonde grabs the strands drooping in her face, twists them, and pins them back into her ponytail. “But no luck so far.”

This will bar him from doing anything. If he can’t heal quickly, he will be a detriment to the team. There are people out there that need help. Ominics are destroying cities, people are trying to survive, children are in trouble. He wants, no, _needs_ to help. That’s the whole reason they started Overwatch. He and Jack made a promise to see it out to the end of this crisis and destroy every omnic in existence, and he was determined to fulfill it. Wait...

“What about Jack? We’ve went through a lot of the same shit.”

Moira laughs, still picking out pieces of metal from his body. Gabriel’s face drops.

“We can’t use Morrison. Your near death experiences clearly outnumber his,” she says. “The Commander takes comfort in his office chair most days, while he sends you, me, and his other Blackwatch guineas to do his bidding.”

Gabriel is shocked, but he knows there is truth to her words. He pinches his mouth into a straight line.

He can see Angela’s face stiffen, too, and she also does not deny the claim.

The redhead remains smiling, focusing on her work, and continuing to pick away shrapnel. “I'm being straightforward with you; there’s no need for that look. We can't use Jack because he isn't as damaged as you are.”

 _Damaged,_ he thinks. _Is that all I am anymore?_

Angela responds to Moira’s statement with a huff and moves to the opposite side of the room. She picks up a set of files from her workbench and reads through them. She separates the files into three stacks, one of them only containing folders with ‘DECEASED’ stamped in striking red on the front flaps. That pile seems to be the biggest, but Gabriel is not surprised. A lot of the recruits in the program could not survive the serums, testing, constant sickness, body changes, or emotional dysfunction during the procedure. Those that did survive were put on the frontlines to die. Though the SEP made them into super soldiers, they were in no way invincible. Just stronger, sturdier, more accurate, and more reliable. The only means of escape was in your brothers, and there was no guarantee that they would be there past the next sunrise.

He misses Jack.

“How much does the Commander know about this?”

“As much as we will allow him to know.” There is an edge to her voice that Gabriel does not like, but he takes those words as a safety. The less Jack knows, the better.

Gabriel refrains from talking further. He doesn’t have the energy to tilt his head up high enough to watch Moira, and Angela’s file shuffling irritates him. He leans his head back into the pillow on the metal table and closes his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Jack has spent most of his time watching the cameras in the lab. It has been almost two weeks since the San Francisco mission, and his only lifeline to Gabriel is the holopad in his hands.

He has been setting timers for Athena to remind him to eat and socialize with the base for the past few days, but his paperwork has been an afterthought. He has been immensely worried, meeting with Angela as frequently as he can, and attempting to get as much information on Gabriel’s condition as possible. Everything has been so damn secretive, though.

 _'He is still in recovery and we are running tests on him, Commander,’ is the only thing she seems able to say_ , he thinks. He’s in the dark about this, and he does not like it.

On the twelfth day after the San Francisco mission, once Jack finishes his scheduled check in with the base, he returns to his office and locks the door. Sitting in his chair, he scans his hand into the holopad and activates Athena.

“Good afternoon, Commander Morrison. How may I assist you?”

“Access to cameras-- code 0184, code 0193, code 1425.”

“To prevent breech, an internal systems bypass code is needed to proceed.”

“1418296. Now, please, Athena.”

“Access granted, Commander. A live feed is on your screen.”

From running through the internal building files stored on Athena’s main server, Jack compiled a list of the codes he needed for cameras. By the third day of Gabriel’s containment, he could see almost every corner of the lab.

“Read Gabriel’s vitals.”

“Code needed to continue for access to confidential Athena proctor for Gabriel Reyes.”

He knew Gabriel’s personal Athena code from workout sessions with him. He mumbled off the code frequently to get a read on his heart rate. Jack has been using it to monitor his vitals acutely since the accident.

“Sierra, Oscar, Lima, Alpha, Foxtrot, Indigo, Delta, Echo.”

The old military tongue tastes weird in his mouth. With all these civilian recruits for Overwatch, Jack rarely used the code anymore. Spelling out ‘sola fide’ left him with memories of brothers and sisters long gone, and of a bright-eyed, young Gabriel from years ago. In the midst of battle, Gabriel would recite that phrase as a quiet prayer. They always made it out alive-- together. He can’t blame his partner for having attachment to the phrase.

“Access granted. Heart rate is stable, 65 BPM. Gabriel is beginning to enter REM cycle sleep.”

“Thank you, Athena.”

From the camera in the center of his screen, Jack can see Gabriel’s wounded leg. The gauze is blotted with heavy blood midway down his thigh.

He knew how his partner got the wound because Jesse told him. The man came into Jack’s office immediately upon arrival and delivered Gabriel’s guns and hat to him, along with a string of apologies ending in a bittersweet, choked sob. He held Jesse in his arms as he cried into his shoulder, the younger man blaming himself for Gabriel’s condition and almost failing the mission. He assured Jesse that the situation was not his fault and that Gabriel would be just fine. He always is. But the sight of his partner’s leg troubles Jack.

 _The wound still hasn’t healed? Something is horribly wrong_ , he thinks.

Even with a drastic injury like the one Gabriel sustained, the healing process should not be taking as long as it is. After twelve days, Gabriel is still bleeding from the wound? It doesn’t add up. Is Gabriel sick?

“Your heart rate is rising, Commander Morrison. You are worrying. Observing Gabriel will not hasten his recovery. Nor will fretting.” Athena’s voice resounds through his office.

“I know that. I just… need to make sure he is okay,” Jack puts his fingers on both sides of his forehead, squeezing away his annoyance. “And this is the only way, for now. Just observing on the sidelines because the medics are keeping me out. Something must be wrong.”

“He is in the care of Overwatch’s best medical professionals. You have no control over his recovery. You must trust them.”

He focuses on the screen, watching Moira wheel a cart to Gabriel. She readies a needle to insert into his arm, prepping to extract blood.

 _She has done this twice today_ , Jack thinks.

“Commander Morrison, you do not trust them with Gabriel. A lack of trust will inevitably hinder your team from reaching its full potential. You must seek audience with Moira and Angela.”

“ _Athena_ , I will ‘seek audience’ with someone when I feel like it--” As the silence hangs, the words thicken and stick in his mouth like sorghum. He is angry; he is aware of that.

“Your heart rate is increasing again. Consider breathing exercises to calm yourself. You function best on seven hours and thirty minutes of sleep, and you did not reach that last night. Irritability is common in those who are sleep deprived.”

“Please stop talking, Athena. Leave me alone.”

“As you wish, Commander.”

He watches Moira leave with the vial, leaving her patient undisturbed. Jack fixates on his face. After a few minutes, he witnesses Gabriel’s mouth twitch in his sleep. He smiles to himself, happy to have caught the moment. He flicks off the holopad and opens his top desk drawer.

Stationary. Ink. And a fountain pen.

This set was a gift from Gabriel back in their SEP days. After hearing Jack complain that he forgot letter supplies to write to his family, Gabriel had kindly shared his own. He taught the man how to use a fountain pen, and, for Jack’s birthday, Gabriel bought him his own supplies so he would “stop mooching like you do with everything else.”

Jack knew significant thought was put into this gift, though his partner would deny it. Etched into the pen’s exterior is the word “Sunshine,” a nickname given to him by Gabriel for his bright blonde hair. He has called him that since their first meeting, and now the nickname carries a fondness with it that Jack admires.

He drags his thumb over the engraving, then begins to write.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos appreciated, comments yearned for.
> 
> Follow my tumblr for updates at [silicaspheres](www.silicaspheres.tumblr.com).


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